U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East has been in disarray for decades. It is one of the few political constants in the post 9/11 world. One exception to break that trend came, surprisingly, during the bombastic presidency of Donald Trump. Whether this can be attributed to luck, or the work of some unnamed diplomatic official, is unimportant, as Trump has called for Republicans to spurn this advantage and follow Biden Democrats down the same path of American retreat.

Toward the end of the Trump presidency, the Middle East appeared to be turning a corner. The Abraham Accords of 2020 had normalized relations between Israel and several countries in the region, namely the United Arab Emirates. If these talks would have continued uninterrupted, the results would have been a stable regional power that represented the interests of both the Jewish and Muslim peoples of the region. It would have also acted as a counter to Iranian power in the region, but more on that later. 

The first event to waylay that future was President Biden denouncing the accords early in his presidency after supporting them on the campaign trial. Following that came the disastrous withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. The chaotic scenes splashed across televisions around the world showed that America was in retreat. The Taliban, who had been effectively quelled as a force in the region, retook control of Kabul within a week.

It took a few years, but the bill for that policy failure is finally coming due. It has been revealed that ISIS-K, the Afghanistan affiliate of the Islamic State, had regrouped and used the country to plan its recent terror attack in Russia. Now, it appears they are at it again, as FBI Director Christopher Wray testified Thursday at a Congressional hearing that ISIS-K is planning an attack on the United States, adding that he would be “hard-pressed to think of a time when so many threats to our public safety and national security were so elevated all at once.”

The threat against America comes alongside another threat that the region can hardly afford. The Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. intelligence has warned Israel that it should prepare for an Iranian attack. This warning from last week was for the weekend, after these pages go to print. We can only hope that they do not come to fruition. If the attack against Israel is coordinated with Iranian proxies like Hezbollah, it is sure to send the region into all out war and pull more U.S. forces into the area. 

If the U.S. is drawn into the region due to a terror attack on its soil or in response to growing Iranian aggression in the Middle East, what will happen with the globe’s other conflicts? China has ratcheted up its aggression in the waters outside of Taiwan. Will it decide that now is the time to make a move? Let us not forget Russia and Ukraine. The Republican’s circus caucus — see Marjorie Taylor Greene et. all — has made abandoning Ukraine a signature platform. Imagine the difficulty in getting support to counter Russia there if the U.S. takes on an active fighting role elsewhere in the world.

The burgeoning chaos is the result of muddled U.S. foreign policy. Biden slow-walked supplies in the early days of Russia’s incursion, denying certain artillery and air support before eventually approving them. He is now sending mixed signals on Israel, denouncing them while still selling them weapons. Meanwhile, Trump has sent orders to Republicans from Mar-a-Lago that the U.S. needs to retreat to the castle and pull up the drawbridge. Ignorance does not make for good policy, but that is what both are offering. The world is a more dangerous place for it. 

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